After following Swithey's thread for a while and then continuing the HD demo theme with ScubaSteve2365's decided to try to make an HD demo disc for myself. The learning process was quite steep and requires many different tools and programs, and with help and cooperation from Steve and others finally have a disc... or with this project five DVD discs plus one Blu-Ray disc..

This project is geared to have HD material, audio and video, in a regular DVD that can be played on a Blu-Ray player. Due to size constraints the media has been chosen to be DVD-DL. The final project consists of 1 top menu and 5 segments; Bass, animation, visual, surround and music, where each segments has 8 clips. When I say final project I mean a full Blu-Ray 50gig disc, while in the interim, there will be a segment on its own that will fit into a DVD-DL disc. The average running time for each disc is 34 minutes and for the full BD50 175 min.

Technical Issues
Having HD audio and video on media other than blu-ray brings some technical challenges. The term for hd content on DVD is know as BD9, so we'll be referring to the discs as BD9 discs from here on.

Most players have no problem playing BD9 discs, but it is a well know fact that most Sony players as well as Panasonics do not play this type of disc. However, there is a patch that can be applied to the Index file on these type of disc that will trick the player on recognizing the disc as being an AVCHD type of disc that these players accept. Even with this patch applied there are restrictions on how the disc plays. It has been my experience that once the patch is applied the disc looses PopUp menus functionality. Although not a huge deal, not quite complete compared to the regular disc. Thus if you are going to try the BD9s be aware that your player might not play these dissc with their full functionality or not play them at all, so I make no claim that these discs will play on all or any blu-ray players, so be very clear that you might be burning non functional disc or as we better know them "coasters". So you are burning discs and testing this project at your own risk.

I suggest you do some research on your player if you are concern on wasting media, I am not an expert on what players play what other than what has been said before. I've tested the BD9 discs on the players that I own: Insignia (Best Buy player), Magnavox (very entry level player), PS3 (old model 60gig) and Sony BDP-CX960 with very mixed results. I've managed to make the discs play on all players, the cheap players, Insignia and Magnavox, play the disc with no problem what so ever and with no patch needed, while the Sony players require the patch to be applied and as mentioned before loose the PopUp menu functionality. Please be aware that your results might be different.

What it's Needed
Some of the software recommended/needed is shareware (not free) if you decide to use it after the test period but usually you can find freeware that has the same functionality of the recommended software, so its up to you what software you use, this are just recommendations. If you are using a Mac... I'm illiterate on that, even though all my kids use nothing but Macs, so ask someone else for help if it has to do with Mac software or usage.
After experimenting different things and the latest experience we all had with Steve's latest disc, I decided to keep the extra step of RARed the discs, avoiding some troubled on how some programs translate folders and files, therefore you would have to unpacked each disc first before you have usable files.

The name for the project is "Reference Blu-Ray Demo Disc". Each individual BD9 has the same heading except the subheading that corresponds to its category description.

My intention was to choose clips that are representative of reference material in its own category. The determination was made by recommendation from threads on this site and others. The clips are not intended to appeal to a specific group, or with specific taste on movies, music or gander. The approach needs to be taken on the merits for each clip being and having reference qualities. I do not expect all clips to appeal to all people ... so it is what it is. Also, some of the disc segments have similar/same clips as Steve's disc.

Sony/PS3 - Panasonic Compatibility
Before burning the disc you need to know if your player will play the disc with the patch or with out the patch. The torrent will include a folder with the already patched files. If your player will not play the disc with out the patch then you need to replace the index file and the movieobject file on the root directory and inside the BACKUP folder with the provided patched files.

There is a player compatibility list at the display calibration side of avsforum - AVS HD 709 - Blu-ray & MP4 Calibration (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=948496), this disc is first and formost and excellent resource to complement any display and invaluable tool for all serious videophiles or simply for someone in the persuite of video excellence. Besides checking here for your player do some digging and ask around, once again, if you are concern on waiting media discs be aware that the discs might not play at all on your player.

Creating the discs
This paragraph describes the general process, if you need the details on how to do any of the steps you can either do a search on how to do the specific step or ask since its been discussed in several different places before. And of course install all the software prior to any step below.

- Get the individual header/tracker for the torrent
- Download the Torrent to your computer or storage device, each disc is roughly 8.5Gb.
- Unpack the file to your local drive or storage device.
- Determine which index files you need for your player.
- Replace index files and movieObject files if needed
- Use Imgburn to burn the disc. Very important and essential to use UDF 2.5.
- Test your disc

Imgburn How To

-Open Imgburn and click on the select burn folder or files.

-Open Explorer to where you unpacked your disc files, and navigate to the BMDV folder level.

-Drag and drop the entire folder into imgburn. It is recommended to also include the CERTIFICATE folder, so drag and drop the CERTIFICATE folder into imgburn.

-Go to the Options tab on the right hand side and select UDF 2.5

-Go to the Lable tab on the right had side and type in disc label.

-Go back to the Information tab and click the calculator, this will give you all the information about the disc.

-Once you have a disc loaded and ready to burn the icon will be colored. Click the icon to burn the disc

Some of you keep your discs and media on HTPC and thus use some type of front end for it. I've been requested Fan Art for these folks. Keep in mind that I'm not a very creative or artistic person so I hope this will do.

Bass Disc
This disc is a collection of the most used clips to test and showcase subwoofers. According to the LFE diehards the Flight of the Phoenix clip even goes under 5hrz, so be careful and aware of your volume levels when using this disc. The link is zipped file that needs to be un-zipped first. The zip file is also password protected. The password to un-zipped the file is "AVSFORUM" (with out the quotes of course). This file includes ALL the links for ALL the discs.

Animation Disc
The animation disc, as most animation movies, looks fantastic, the colors, sharpness and detail on all the clips speak for themselves.
The file is a zipped file that will need to be un-zipped first. The zip file is also password protected. The password to un-zipped the file is "AVSFORUM" (with out the quotes of course). This file includes ALL the links for ALL the discs

Music Disc
For those that had never been exposed to or experienced Justin Bieber, my apologies, but the clip regardless of what you think of his music or him its truly reference quality, so in the spirit of covering as many different types of music as possible with the constraints of the media we have, the Bieber made the cut. The music segment covers form classical, to Broadway, to electronic, to rock, to vocal and pop. Try not to be to critical of the actual music but instead be critical of the whole reference concept and open your eyes and ears for it.
The file is a zipped file that will need to be un-zipped first. The zip file is also password protected. The password to un-zipped the file is "AVSFORUM" (with out the quotes of course). This file includes ALL the links for ALL the discs.

Surround Disc
All the clips in this segment will bring you right in the middle of the action. The sound design and mixing in all clips is amazing, there are constant sounds coming from all speakers. The clip from the movie Tron is DTS-MA 7.1 native, so if your system is a 7.1 set up there will be no additional sound processing to bring sound to all your speakers, just the way the sound engineers design it.
The file is a zipped file that will need to be un-zipped first. The zip file is also password protected. The password to un-zipped the file is "AVSFORUM" (with out the quotes of course). This file includes ALL the links for ALL the discs

Visual Disc
The variety of clips for the Visual segment have very different characteristics among themselves. Be on the look for skin tones, shadow detail, range of colors, contrasts and sharpness. There are plenty of close-ups and nature scenes to please the most discriminating critic.
The file is a zipped file that will need to be un-zipped first. The zip file is also password protected. The password to un-zipped the file is "AVSFORUM" (with out the quotes of course). This file includes ALL the links for ALL the discs.

The complete bluray disc is nothing more than all the 5 segments put together and accessible from a Top Menu, so if you have the individual segments by themselves practically you are not missing anything. You can navigate the disc from the Top Menu right into the selected segment. The segments also have menu navigation with in them , where the clips can be play from either their respective menu or by using a PopUp menu with-in each individual segment. All clips can be “chapter next” this will either bring you to the segment menu or to the next clip if you are playing the clips from the Play All menus. A remainder that If you are planning to burn this disc a BD50 media and a Blu-Ray burner are required.

THERE ARE TWO DIFFERENT FILES FOR THE FULL DISC. PLEASE READ THROUGH TO MAKE SURE WHICH ONE TO CHOOSE.

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NEWS GROUPS FILES

Compliments of Caper_1; he has taken the time and effort to upload the full BD50 files to news-groups.

This file contains the BDMV structure with no clips inside the STREAM folders. The stream folders contains a list of text files that you replace with the actual clips (.m2ts files) from the individual segments. You MUST have the individual segments discs to use this file.

Instructions

-Unzip the download to produce the standard BDMV and CERTIFICATE folders.

-Open the STREAM folder. You will see text files such as "00007_VIS0006" and "00015_SURR0008." Respectively, they mean "Take file 00006 in the STREAM folder of the Visuals disc, rename it 00007, and drop it here," and "Take file 00008 in the STREAM folder of the Surround disc, rename it 00015, and drop it here."

-Do this for each text file. Note that there is no 00028! Make sure you don't lose, delete or change any of the m2ts files that are already there.

I believe you have the Music and Bass discs, the music disc has been re-authored to match the menus to the other disc, but it has the same content. The bass disc is the same.

First disc coming out is the Bass disc, so you might want to skip this one.

There were issues with one of them, and honestly I've misplaced the discs (moved to a new house in the middle of the madness) so I can't recall which was which. I'll give a shot at pulling it down again so I can help seed.

I'd really be interested to know what the patch is/does. My Pio plays AVCHD just fine (as long as the bitrate is within avchd standards).

However, early Sammys, like my bdp-1200, do not.

Edit: When using Tsmuxer, and selecting avchd as the output, the Pioneer always shows avchd in the display.

The patch program is called AVCHD Patcher 1.06. What it does is patching/replacing some of the entries on the Index root file. This file has information about the disc and what type of disc it is. The patch can actually do several things. Patch the Index file to a AVCHD type and actually rename/convert the disc to a AVCHD format. It's been my experience that just patching the Index file works best. By just patching the Index file all its doing is tricking the player on recognizing the disc as a AVCHD but in reality it's a Blu-Ray data format disc.

Even with the patch, some players still have trouble with the disc as you mentioned it due to the fact that the bit rate of the disc is to high to be a AVCHD that the player thinks is playing.

Any time! Initial download should be done later tonight, then it'll be seeding.

If I can figure out how to bring it to work, I might be able to copy all the files over there (via hard drive) and seed from there, too, in the off hours. Fat pipe = fast upload. Only possible outside of business hours, though, so we'll see. I can't leave it running there forever, but should really help out the initial rush... once enough people are seeding, it won't be as necessary.

Cool.
I managed to download the bass one over night and I am going to just keep seeding until the next one comes out in a week or two or three... Hopefully others will do the same so that these things download faster. I know it took about 20 hours to download it because there were only 2 seeders at the time, so a few more (myself included) will really help.

Cool.
I managed to download the bass one over night and I am going to just keep seeding until the next one comes out in a week or two or three... Hopefully others will do the same so that these things download faster. I know it took about 20 hours to download it because there were only 2 seeders at the time, so a few more (myself included) will really help.

I'm seeding, too, and will continue to do so until a critical mass picks up. My upload speed at home is only about 130 kbps, though. I didn't get a chance to bring the files to work yet, but hopefully tomorrow.

I'm seeding, too, and will continue to do so until a critical mass picks up. My upload speed at home is only about 130 kbps, though. I didn't get a chance to bring the files to work yet, but hopefully tomorrow.